The Two Parts of Our Existence

The freedom of thought is pretty obvious to everyone since everyone’s thoughts are their own property and can’t be tampered with by anyone one but ourselves. This makes our thoughts an exclusive property that belongs to our being and this part of our being is incapable of being tampered with, controlled by, or beholden to by anyone else. This makes all people ‘created equal’ since whatever force in the universe made it possible for us to think also made that part of us incapable of being owned or controlled by another.

This is the first part of our existence which happens to be in a natural state of freedom since it is not restrained by anything but this freedom has no real meaning without the ability to manipulate the physical universe around us. This is the second part of our existence which is our existence in the physical world and we manipulate the physical world around us through the use of our own property. When we are free to manipulate the physical world around us the first part of our existence and the second part of our existence lines up and we live in a physical state of freedom but this state can only exist when we have property rights.

Think of a person who possesses an apple and has the desire to eat and does so by eating the apple. The first part of his existence was his thought to eat and the second part of his existence was the physical act itself. When he was able to use his property he was able to use his freedom to eat. Without the right to use his property the way he wants his natural state of freedom would be infringed on.

This particular freedom (the freedom to eat what we want) was protected by the fact that it is his property which gives him an exclusive right to use that property as his thoughts directed him to. The consequences of eating the apple might have had a negative effect on him or others around him but the choice would remain his simply because he possessed a right over the apple that no one else had. This exclusive right over the apple protected his freedom from being infringed on by others.

This is why their is a link between individual freedom and individual property rights because a person’s free use of their own property ensures that no one else can interfere with his free will over his existence. At the same time, it prevents him from interfering with the freedom of others since he can’t claim any right to use their property. When we assume that all property belongs to the collective it is assuming that the first part of our existence is somehow beholden to another person. This simply not true because our individual thinking process in itself exist in a natural state of freedom and does not belong to anyone else.

This is not foreign to our way of thinking because think of how the first amendment protects the freedom of speech. It states that congress can pass no law that inhibits the freedom of speech but how can it protect your right to think of something when we have already seen how the first part of our existence in incapable of being controlled by another person so it does not seem possible that any member of congress has any power over that part of us. The only power congress has left is the power over the second part of our existence which is the physical space around us which happens to be our property.

Think of a possible government clampdown on the freedom of speech on the internet. In this hypothetical clampdown government begins to lay down restrictions on how to use your internet website and when the courts decides to strike down those restrictions because it violates the first amendment it is really denying the government to control your internet website. What is really being fought over is the right to use one’s own property which is why every freedom we have is really just the right to use our property the way we want to.

There is no difference between individual freedom and individual property rights because if you deny someone the use of their own property you deny them the ability to manifest the first part of their existence into the second part of their existence. When their is no wall placed between these two parts of our existence we live in a state of freedom.

2 thoughts on “The Two Parts of Our Existence”

Primitivism, Individualism. I would be much more receptive if you stated your arguments up-front. Your attempt to "slide" into a conclusion under the radar, creating an appearance of profundity, is offensive and suggests an air of arrogance that I haven't heard since about 9th grade.

"There is but one conclusion: human beings are unmeasurable. It follows that _equality_ is a social assumption independent of fact. It is made for the sake of civil peace, of approximating justice, and of bolstering self-respect." [Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: The Forgotten Troop, p436 pp2; emphasis additional]